


california girls (we're unforgettable)

by grangerbutstranger



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Teen Wolf (TV), Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Crossover, Gen, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 04:24:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1331821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grangerbutstranger/pseuds/grangerbutstranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allison never really believed in an afterlife. But then, she didn't believe in werewolves either until she met one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	california girls (we're unforgettable)

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't watch the episode. I was busy and then I saw the gifsets before I checked the time. I will never watch Teen Wolf again, so consider this a probable last hurrah in the fandom unless I write a massive AU for some reason.
> 
> You can pretty much read any femslash pairing you want into this if you're so inclined, but honestly, it's too sad for me to purposely put any in there. (No, seriously, this is so sad. Please don't read it if you're not in a good emotional place. I'm sure there are happy AUs out there for you if you need them instead.)
> 
> Don't ask why the Veronica Mars characters ended up in here, it just happened, movie on the brain and all.
> 
> ETA: I didn't include Erica and Boyd because Allison wasn't really friends with them but now I think I should have so WHOOPS whatever I'm done I'm out the end.

Allison never really believed in an afterlife. But then, she didn't believe in werewolves either until she met one.

"Mom?" she sobs, hands curled at her mouth, watching her mother's face go from smiling to stricken in less than a moment.

"Allison," she says, her voice too small to hold the anger in it. "Allison..."

She doesn't want her to say any more, so she goes and holds her. She holds her mom the way her dad held her after her mom died, while she screamed and hit him and her face contorted with the weight of her grief. But her mom doesn't cry, just rests her hands on Allison's back almost reverently. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Mom, I--" It hits her, suddenly, everything that happened, and she chokes back almost a scream. She is angry. She has never been angrier.

Will never be angrier, she supposes.

She sits down and cries into her knees until a hand, unfamiliar, falls on her shoulder.

"Hey, Allison?" a voice says, and Allison wipes her eyes with both palms and tries to paste on a smile. As if a smile makes a difference. She's dead.

"I'm sorry," the voice says, and it belongs to a woman not so much older than she is. Light, straight hair and concerned eyes. She's wearing a dress. Old-fashioned, but it suits her. Allison wonders idly how long she's been dead. "Should I leave you alone for a while?"

"No," Allison says. What difference does it make? "Who are you?"

"Tara," the woman says, holding out her hand. Allison shakes it, reassured by its solid weight. She might be dead, but this is real. "There are some people I think you should meet."

\--

Allison's mom has friends here. Or one friend, at least. Someone who knows what it's like to leave her daughter. Someone who knows what it's like to have her daughter join her again, though Allison never meets the daughter in question.

Someone who knows about werewolves.

"I know about everything, by now," Joyce says. "Vampires, demons--"

"Vampires?" Allison asks.

"Different part of California," Tara says with a small smile tilting a corner of her mouth.

She cries when she meets Anya and Cordelia, because she's overwhelmed and because Lydia would have loved them, and she's sad they're dead, and she's sad she's dead, and she's sad she has to wait.

But she forgets, sometimes, how sad she is, how long it is. Her new...friends? Maybe? They're weird, but she likes them. She likes to think she could have grown up to be like them, or maybe like the people they tell her about, the living ones.

Her heart aches for Tara when she hears her stories and the love in her words for the people who lost her. People she's lost, Allison thinks, because it has to be two-sided, if they're here. Allison thinks again and again about dying in Scott's arms, but it's something she doesn't know how to share. Not with these people who loved and lost and were lost and who seem to know how that goes. She finds out Cordelia didn't even know Tara or Anya in life, but met them through mutual friends, like some kind of post-mortem Facebook suggestion.

But they were already dead before Facebook went public. She doesn't quite know how to handle that. She doesn't know how to handle being so young, and so new here too.

Meg helps a little. Meg doesn't burn so bright it's overwhelming. Not like Anya or Cordelia. Not like Lilly, who only Anya seems to really like. Not like Tara, who isn't so blinding, but glows with something all the same.

Meg died when she was her age. Lilly even younger. But Allison is missing something they all have. They all pin their hopes on the people they left behind. A girl they each know who will avenge them.

Allison hopes Lydia is her girl. She isn't sure.

\--

"It gets easier," Tara tells her, sometime, "when you stop trying to figure out why."

"How do you stop?" Allison asks, looking at her hands. She misses painting her nails with Lydia's collection. Misses turning her cell phone over and tapping her fingers on the back. Misses having objects like that to hold. There are things that are empty about this almost-life, telling stories to each other as if that's all they ever were.

"Remember they have each other," Tara says, as if that's supposed to answer her question. Or maybe it's not.

But what about me, Allison thinks. What do I have?

"I think Tara means it's not supposed to make sense," Meg says, sitting down with them.

"What do you do here? All the time?" Allison says. She doesn't know how long it's been. She doesn't know if she should know this already.

"This," Meg says.

"We talk, mostly," Tara agrees.

"Don't you ever get bored?" Allison asks.

Tara sighs. "I don't know if we can anymore."

Allison thinks she feels sick, but it's hollow, like a memory.

\--

She realizes, soon, why they never get bored.

Someone's always arriving.

Seems like they always fit right in.


End file.
